Brands and developers can now buy keyword search inside Apple’s app store. This article has 5 essential working practices that makes PPC look pricey and inefficient…
Having run 127 Apple Search Ads based campaigns in the US store, we are seeing outstanding CR’s. The highest at 68%, the lowest at 40% and the cost per taps range (CPT) from $0.04 to $8.27 with the average working out at approximately $1.96 for a premium subscription app.
Search Ads Dashboard
Here are the 5 actions you need to implement now before Apple Search Ads rolls out in your territory.
Implement an App Store Optimization (ASO) Strategy with Relevant Metadata:
For those that don’t apply ASO, it is the tailoring of your Title, Keystring and Metadata of your app with Relevant Keywords. What will your user be searching for to find your app? It’s that simple, Keywords need to be seeded at least 4 times and BE RELEVANT.
Understand how Apple differs to Google:
The current Apple Search Ads algorithm appears to favour what’s best for the overall consumer experience, i.e. it’s not what drives the highest Cost Per Tap (CPT). Understanding keyword conversion history is more important than just setting a high bid price. This is why your ASO implementation becomes critical. When you place an ad with Apple Search Ads, you bid for the terms that generate high traffic, however the terms also need to be relevant.
If it’s not relevant, you don’t get the ads
Search Ads Bidding
Understand the principles of a second price auction:
There are two things to consider: bid strategy and timing. As a second price auction means you will pay the next lowest bid price, then you might want to think about setting your CPT low and raising it gradually throughout the campaign. Having a bigger budget than someone else doesn’t always work. Particularly, if you rush to spend it all early on. Hint, ‘end of month’ performs well. There are many more.
Implement Apple’s attribution API or a third-party platform:
Find your true life time value of a user and buy on this basis. You are running a business and any vanity metrics need to be expelled from the process. Downloads don’t really count any more. It’s all about prolonged and useful user engagement. You must be able to track user engagement, understand it and improve it before you spend a dime on acquiring more customers blindly.
Allocate resource on user acquisitions through the App Store:
Many companies have teams with DPS, SEO and Pragmatic skills. However, 65% of all downloads in the Apple Store come from app stores search function. Your budgets and resource allocation must reflect this new opportunity offered by Apple Search Ads.
We’ve been lucky enough to be working with big brands and indie developers since the Beta of Apple Search Ads. I can honestly say that we’ve been stunned by the results…
The Apple Search Ads product is rumoured to roll out in the UK during Q1 2017.
Contact us to get started now.